No Textassness!

Amaretto touched on this a little while ago – the downside of text messaging. Now before I get on my soap box and file my complaint with the masses, I have to confess that I love to text message! I will have a whole conversation via text. I will send a text about the most random thing in the world to some of my bestest friends. But that’s just it, they’re my friends. So what’s my problem? My issue? My beef with text messaging as it were? My problem is the textassness that happens when you have man + woman + budding relationship/friendship/fuck option/potential whatever...

Let me give you an example. Girl’s male co-worker says, “I think you’d be a ‘good’ match for my friend. Can I pass your number along?” Girl who’s always down to make new friends says sure. Girl hears nothing from boy for a lonng time. Finally one night, girl’s phone goes off. She opens the phone and finds a new message by an unknown number. This is odd, girl thinks. She reads the message and finds this: Hi girl. This is boy, co-worker’s friend. How are you? WTF, girl almost screams aloud, but then realizes that she’s right next to her mother. Girl figures she has three options 1. Respond 2. Cuss boy out 3. Ignore. Well like a fool I responded. What can I say he caught me on a good day. But then this man tried to have a conversation via text. Again, WTF? Oh but it gets better. This fool asked me out twice via text. I had never had nary a conversation with him, but for some reason he thought it was cool that I just meet him out in the world. Yeah, I stopped responding to his texts.

Admittedly most of this was my fault. I could and should have told him from jump that I deserved a conversation. Shouts out to Mint Julep. But I couldn’t help but wonder what made him think this was OK? What made him think this was acceptable behavior? Had he tried this technique on other women girls and found that it worked? Was he scared to have a real conversation with me? The pretend psychologist in me thinks this is some passive aggressive bullshit behavior. The single girl in me thinks that men are just being lazy and courtship is a lost art. And the realist in me thinks that these men must believe I'm not worth the time and effort.

And as I curse aloud every time my phone chimes, the textassness continues to spiral out of control. I am finding the following pattern: I give my number to a guy, we have one or two convos, and then he wants to take it to text messaging. I understand the cute, how are you today texts. But what I don’t like is the how are you, what are you doing, I’m doing this right now, lol, what are you doing now, what do you want to do with your life, don’t you want to come out, let's have a serious discussion about x, lol, never ending texts! Seriously pick up the phone and tell me what the fuck you want. And if it involves me meeting you somewhere, just say it, don’t go all around the mulberry bush.

But the other day a male friend of mine told me I need to get with the times. According to him text messaging is not impersonal. And unlike me who thinks that you should have a decent foundation before you take it to the text messages, he thinks it allows you to multitask and he saw nothing wrong with ol’ boy asking me out via text message. Well transport me back to 1942 then. Or to the days of the one house phone and the busy signal. I mean I know the world is moving fast, and we’re all busy and pursuing our hopes and dreams and whatnot…But isn’t getting to know someone all about making that connection? Remember getting giddy when that person called, hearing their sexy ass voice on the phone, talking for hours on end, falling asleep on the phone together, playing the you hang up first game? I know there are perks to getting older. But there are some things that shouldn’t have to change.

That’s my time y’all! Happy Rum Punch Friday!

judges behaving badly

Imagine you walk into a bar to meet a friend. You sit down and order your drink. You turn to your friend, preparing to ask him about his sojourn to the holy land formerly known as Denver when all of a sudden you hear...

I HATE YOU! he he I HATE YOU!

You look over and see a...

Black

Female

Criminal Court Judge

Making a fool of herself

Twas me one night last week. Struggling to hold down a conversation over drinks with a friend while witnessing a HOT ASS MESS!

Now I've seen this particular Judge in court before and while she has a reputation for ghettofabulosity on the job (i.e. having her computer speakers playing hip hop music pseudo-softly in the background during a lull in court proceedings, announcing that she had had enough for the day and was leaving the bench to go pick her child up from day care, etc.), I was generally impressed with her. She is a relatively young Black woman who has risen through the ranks to attain the bench and is a pretty fair and knowledgeable arbiter.

So I was not SO surprised when I looked down the bar last week and saw that it was Ms. Judge sitting at the other end talking and laughing quite loudly with another gentleman. I already knew she was LOUD. Judges tend to be that way sometimes. And it is a bar where people might get a little tipsy and forget to use their inside voices. So maybe she liked to drop an F bomb here and there, no biggie.

Well folks, let's just say it got much worse from there. It was clear that Ms. Judge (who is not married) and this gentleman (who happened to be sporting a wedding ring) had been and still were fuck friends for quite some time. "We been f'ing all week what's the big deal?" Yeah, it went there. And so their conversation continued, a play by play rehashing of their past escapades and encounters along with arguments from both sides about why they never were able to make it work. They'd be going back and forth, with "fuck you's" and "bitch please's" coming from BOTH sides and then the words would stop. I'd think to myself, finally, Ms. Judge got some respect for herself. And then I'd hear...

mmmmm......ahhhhh.....[what making out sounds like]

Yes people! I'd sneak a glance out of the corner of my eye and see tonguing and groping action in full effect. It got so bad that my friend and I had to leave the bar. Cause I damn sure was not paying attention to a word he was saying.

I was ashamed for Ms. Judge and for Black women everywhere!

I will give you that silly loud behavior happens in bars, even considering that this was a "nice" upscale hotel bar.

I will give you that some folks "just don't care", enjoy slobbing each other down and groping genitals in public.

But SHAME ON YOU Ms. Judge for: being loud, having inappropriate conversations about your sexual relations, letting a man (who is someone else's huzband) yell at you and call you out your name, then making out with said man, in public, when you are up for re-election, as a criminal court judge. And you a Black woman dog! I can't and will not! (c) Fresh

art imitating life???

They run the gamut… some married happily, some married—yet barely hanging on, and some newly divorced, and yet some eager to be hitched. Indeed my friends are an interesting bunch. And on top of that, I’m reading “The Interruption of Everything”—where the protagonist Marilyn has just been told by her husband, Leon, that he’s been creeping (although Marilyn knew that much already). This particular story makes me think of my friend Desiree, a member of the some married-yet barely hanging on crew. I’ve been getting’ vibes for a while that she’s a little unhappy for awhile. And I have a feeling what her husband does when he’s not with her is part of the problem.

So, Desiree informs me that her husband, Charles will be taking some night classes—bring the verve back in his profession. Cool, I’m all for honing and preserving professional skills. However, Charles classes are 30 minutes away--- and he feels the need to have an apartment. Huh? WTF? And if me being inexplicit isn’t working, then let me say this, I do feel like the apartment is a refuge to perform extracurricular activities that ain’t got shit to deal with school.

Oh, and did I fail to mention they have kids. Nah, ni**a your ass needs to come home and help my girl with y’alls chil’ren every night. To my chagrin, Charles has the apartment.

Granted it ain’t none of my business. But as I told ya before I have an opinion on everything, although the older I’ve gotten I tend to keep ‘em to myself, except when I share them with y’all.

Now Desiree and Charles have been married for 15 years—so kudos to their union. But, I must say if those are the conditions to being married—I want no parts in that.

So, it is this passage, an exchange between Marilyn and Leon from Terry McMillian’s novel that made me wonder if art is imitating life—this might have well been an episode on Desiree and Charles.

‘ “What time did you say you’ll be home?”
“I can’t really say just now…”

I nod, knowing he’s not really waiting for an answer. I listen to him ramble on but I don’t hear a word he’s saying. What I’m really thinking is that Leon’s phone call- a cliché if ever there was one—most likely means he’s on his way to an economy hotel (he’s a miser, but wouldn’t be caught dead in a motel) where in a couple of hours he will, if he hasn’t already, order some room service (at least a decent bottle of Moet), and his much-younger-than-me, slender and sexy girlfriend who probably works in a cubicle somewhere in his office, is spraying on some kind of popular perfume after having just come out of the shower so that after he arrives and imbibes a little he will have …. Loosened up enough to enjoy watching her suck his dick like he’s in some porno movie and to be fair and make sure he can repeat this escapade, he’ll also manage to go down on her the way he used to go down on me … ’

See that’s some bullshit, but good thing this is only art imitating life or is it.

cheers,

Bellini

Simplicity is Best

I was thinking about men the other day, and how relatively simple they are. Not in the glazed eyed, can’t figure what one plus one equals. But more in the fed ‘em, fcuk 'em and whatever that last thing is that no one can remember, way. Yet many hours have been spent and evenings devoted to understanding men by womenfolk and we still just don’t get them.

I guess I long for things to be simple. Many times my gals and I get confused when after months of being chased and pursued suddenly Mister becomes too busy to hang out or shoot even send a text message. Which is fine. Shit and life both happen. But I really have a problem with men using their words; and how they don’t when they should… For some reason many men think their silence spares our feelings because we women folk can’t handle the truth.

Pish Posh I say! Women can handle you not being into us no mo. But we can’t handle the weeks and months it took you to finally tell us.

***And at this point I will admit that there are some crazy chicks who will cut a man for leaving her. So on that base level, I understand some men’s fear. And I say to those men, in those situations, to lie to that crazy lady until you have secured a safe house in another state***

But I like to keep things easy, breezy, simple and drama free. It just amazes me that in all my living the last time I never ever had to wonder, ponder and try to understand the heart of a man was when I was 7 years old. And that was decades ago ya'll! It was Valentine’s day, and I was living my life like its golden (yes, even before Jill said I could) passing out my Snoopy and Smuf Valentine cards and candy. When I returned to my desk there was a decorated shoebox filled with candy from Brian Thompson. He was a cutie! And he was so happy when I spied my gift. I was surprised and then I started crying. So much so that my dad had to come an pick me up. I mean I was seven and still of the thinking that boys were the greatest incubators of coodies and I wasn’t trying to be infected!

But later I thought about his gesture. Him putting himself out there to let me know that he liked me. And about me getting upset. Did my actions teach Brian something that day? Had I hurt him because I wasn’t ready for his truth? Of course at seven I wasn’t asking myself these questions, I had a big ole box of candy to eat! But now when I seek that same level of honesty or just a gesture (it doesn’t have to be grand) to let me know I’m liked the answer has a lot of clauses and contingencies. Maybe it’s just past hurt and rejection that makes the answer so convoluted. But at the end of the day it’s either yes or no. Its just that simple.

See You In Seven

W.W.C.D?

Does anyone remember the strange story that Tom Cruise’s character in the movie Collateral spoke about with the dead man on the subway not being noticed? Well Philly just told a similar story last week. Read this…

Police charge man in Philly subway hammer attack
Police have arrested a man suspected of brutally attacking a dozing subway passenger with a hammer while other riders did nothing to stop the assault, the city's police commissioner said Wednesday.

Thomas Scantling, 26, of Philadelphia, was charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and related charges, police said.

Scantling, who was taken into custody in a mental institution late Tuesday, has a lengthy record of rape and other convictions, Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said on NBC's "Today."

The victim was treated and released from a hospital.

Ramsey criticized other riders for standing by when the assailant entered the train with his 5-year-old son, directed the boy to a seat, calmly pulled a hammer from a backpack and attacked a man dozing in a nearby seat.

At least 10 other riders were in the car, yet no one interfered as the attacker repeatedly struck the victim in the train car and later out on a platform, Ramsey said on "Today."

"They better pray they're never a victim, because if someone was attacking them that way they would certainly hope someone would step forward and help, and it starts with stepping forward and doing something yourself," Ramsey said.

Police trying to generate tips released surveillance video Monday showing the early Sept. 4 assault that was played repeatedly on Philadelphia television stations.

Authorities said Scantling was apprehended after family members called police. It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney.

"He has a long criminal history including rape, robbery, assault, narcotics violations," Ramsey said.

Scantling apparently had tried to hurt himself with the hammer following the attack on the subway. Family members said they were not initially aware of the attack, but had Scantling committed to the mental institution where he was taken into custody.

The victim, 20-year-old Dewayne Taylor, made his own way to a hospital and was treated for head and neck injuries. Taylor, who has been released from the hospital, said Tuesday he has no idea who the attacker is or why he was targeted.

This incident really managed to spark a lot of conversation. Besides the fact that I use that same subway system twice a day, five days a week and this story scared the mess out of me, there was a lot of discussion as to why nobody helped the victim.

Which then led me to think “What would Courvoisier do?” (W.W.C.D?)

Well I am not going to lie and say I would have stepped in because I wouldn’t have. But I do believe I would have called the police on my cell phone. This incident wasn't reported until eight hours later, when the victim called the police. And if you watch the video I linked in the header, you will see there were quite a few witnesses and not one person stepped forward. That truly makes the island gal in me sad.

Think about it what would you have done?
We know what Jesus would do.

Happy Monday y’all.
Peace